AID TO STATES IN WILDLIFE RESTORATION PROJECTS AUGUST 16, 1937.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed Mr. Lucas, from the Committee on Agriculture, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany S. 2670] The House Committee on Agriculture, to whom was referred the bill (S. 2670) to provide that the United States shall aid the States in wildlife-restoration projects, and for other purposes, after consideration of same, report with the recommendation that the bill do pass with the following amendments: Page 3, line 13, following the word "cartridges" insert a comma. Page 3, line 13, strike out the word "shall" and insert in lieu thereof the wording "is hereby authorized to". Page 3, line 15, following the word "hereby" and preceding the word "appropriated" insert the following wording "authorized to be". Page 3, line 18, strike out the words "shall be" and insert in lieu thereof the wording "is authorized to be made". Page 3, line 23, strike out the words "shall then be" and insert in lieu thereof the wording "is authorized to be made". Page 4, line 6, strike out the words "shall be" and insert in lieu thereof the wording "is authorized to be made". Page 5, line 24, strike out the words "shall be" and insert in lieu thereof the wording "is authorized to be made". In his invitation to the conservationists of the Nation to hold a North American Wildlife Conference in Washington in February 1936, President Roosevelt said: My purpose is to bring together individuals, organizations, and agencies interested in the restoration and conservation of wildlife resources. My hope is that through this conference new cooperation between public and private interests, and between Canada, Mexico, and this country, will be developed; that from it will come constructive proposals for concrete action; that through these proposals existing State and Federal governmental agencies and conservation groups can work cooperatively for the common good. At the conference Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace read a letter from President Roosevelt addressed to the delegates in which the President said: It has long been my feeling that there has been lack of a full and complete public realization of our wildlife plight, of the urgency of it, and of the many social and economic values that wildlife has to our people. This, and my firm belief in the ability of the American people to face facts, to analyze problems, and to work out a program which might remedy the situation, is what impelled me to call the North American Wildlife Conference. As an outgrowth of the constructive suggestion of the President there was formed at this conference the General Wildlife Federation whose objectives are substantially those outlined by the President himself. Forty-four States now have federations or councils affiliated with the national organization and their combined memberships are in excess of 5,000,000 men and women who have a sincere and genuine interest in wildlife restoration on the North American Continent. One of the major objectives of the National Wildlife Association is the passage of legislation to authorize Federal grants-in-aid to the States for conservation purposes. This bill carries out that objective and its provisions have been endorsed by virtually every conservation agency, public and private, in the United States. These conservationists fully recognize that restrictive laws alone will never replace our once abundant supply of wildlife. We must restore the environment of wildlife and its preservation for all time is essentially a problem of land and water management. The time has come when the Federal Government and the States must cooperatively engage in a broad program which will not only preserve our presentday limited supply of wildlife, but restore it to some semblance of its former abundance. A com To that end this bill S. 2670, was introduced in the Senate. panion measure, H. R. 7681, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman A. Willis Robertson, chairman of the Special House Committee on Conservation of Wildlife. Since the Senate bill has been passed with sundry amendments, and is now before this committee, it is favorably reported by this committee in lieu of the House bill, with the additional amendment mentioned above. In reporting S. 2670 with the recommendation that it do pass, the Special Committee on Conservation of Wildlife Resources of the Senate said: The bill provides for the joint activity of State and Federal agencies in a continent-wide restoration for all species of wildlife. 2. The Federal Government will, by the provisions of this bill, set aside funds to be allotted to any or all of the 48 States in the Union which comply with the provisions of this act. 3. The funds thus set aside by the Federal Government are not additional taxes to be levied against the taxpayer. They are not new taxes at all. The money proposed by this bill for wildlife restoration are the dollars which are now (and have been for sometime) collected from special excise taxes on sportsmen's equip ment-sporting arms and ammunition. It amounts to about 3 million dollars a year. This 4. One of the cardinal principles of conservationists has always been that moneys taken in by Government agencies from wildlife resources, sportsmen's license fees, etc., should be spent in the conservation and maintenance of wildlife species. bill now before Congress applies to the Federal Government this principle which has long been in successful operation in the States and provides for its equitable distribution of this revenue to the 48 States in cooperative projects with the Federal Government. 5. Upon the enactment of this measure, money now paid in by taxes on sportsmen's equipment will be spent for wildlife restoration. The process of administration is similar to that parallel necessity to American health and happiness, the Federal Highway Aid Act. Each State conservation agency or fish and game commission will, by the provisions of this bill, receive its quota for restoration projects from the Federal Government on the same general plan as Federal highway aid is distributed to State highway commissions. The State and Federal Government will jointly pay the cost of these wildlife-restoration projects which, when completed, must be maintained as such by the State. 6. There is no dispute over the necessity, workability, effectiveness, or justice of this bill. The State's quota of allocations under the provisions of this bill is arrived at by allocating (a) one-half in the ratio which the area of each State bears to the total area of all the States and one-half in the ratio which the number of paid hunting-license holders of each State bears to the total number of paid huntinglicense holders of all the States. Applying this formula and using the $3,000,000 figure which the excise tax produced during the past year, the allocation of funds for each State is shown in the table below. The provisions of this bill have been endorsed in principle by: The General Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League of America, the International Association of Fish and Game Commissioners, the Western Association of Fish and Game Commissioners, the American Wildlife Institute, More Game Birds in America, New England Fish and Game Conference, the administrators of the conservation departments of 39 States, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the Garden Clubs of America, and other conservation groups, agencies, and individuals throughout the country. It is fundamentally sound and will do for the wildlife of America what the Federal-aid program has done for the highway system of our Nation. ESTIMATED ALLOCATIONS TO EACH STATE BASED ON AN ANNUAL INCOME OF $3,000,000 FROM THE EXCISE TAX ON SPORTING ARMS AND AMMUNITION The 10 percent excise tax produces annually (estimated). 8 percent deduction, provided by law, for overhead and operation____ Net amount for allocation among the States__ $3,000,000 240,000 2,760, 000 1, 380, 000 1, 380, 000 3,026, 719 = = $0.4559392, value of each square mile Total number of hunting licenses in all the United States (1935 report) . $1,380,000.00 5, 937, 797 = $0.2324094, value of each hunting license H. Repts., 75-1, vol. 3-80 |